The gourmet has not proven that it is impossible to make a decision, only that it is impossible to make an optimal one. In order to do that, he would have to collect data, presumably by patronizing the restaurant multiple times and ordering the same dish each time with different quantities of cheese.
Had the waiter simply reminded the gourmet of this, he would have generated possibly substantial additional revenue for the restaurant, not to mention substantial savings on cheese. It is therefore my recommendation that
I love parmesan and will take as much as I can before my spouse starts to scowl at me
That shit is like $50/lb so just keep grating and I’ll take it in a to go box.
If the rationalist deduces what is logical based on their empirical experience then their reasoning is flawed. We have to accept the axiomatic truth that our senses are limited and cannot account for an absolute truth.
To separate valid perceptions from invalid ones, a person first must assume that the world can be known through the senses. They must also assume that the world is objectively real. These assumptions do not get along well with one other. To say the world is objectively real is to say it is independent of and indifferent to sense perception. Then what in the world can we know? We can know only the effects of the parmesan cheese upon our senses, not the cheese itself.
The objectively real world may be separate from and indifferent to sense perception, but sense perception isn’t indifferent to the objective world. Sense perceptions are caused by an interaction of our sense organs and the world. Surely from repeated patterns of sense perception we can draw some correct inferences about the external world?
How can we be sure that those inferences are correct? Any appeal to empirical evidence would be circular reasoning.
“correct” is a heavy word there. Would reproducible and predictable suffice?
I see that the chef is of the same I Always Want More school of parmesan as Ben Lapidus and Heidi Klum.
If all knowledge is empirical, you have your solution already. Just make an experiment. Use a heuristic to estimate an amount, test it and adjust as you go.